The Impact of the Ancient Greeks

As a student of Classical Civilizations, I study the vast impact that the Ancient Greeks (and the Romans) had on modern society (especially western society). Theoretically, I know that the ancient societies I study continue to strongly influence the world today but practically, my mind still boggles whenever I see something  that is clearly Ancient Greek or Roman play a huge part in the mainstream of today's society.

Take companies and corporations for example. When we think of coffee, most of us think of Starbucks. Next time you're at a Starbucks, take a good look at the seal on the sleeve protecting your hand from the piping hot, delicious latte. The woman in the logo with all the snakes for hair: that's Medusa. We all see Nike products every day but we rarely recognize that the company derives its name from Niké (pronounced NeeKay) who was the Goddess of Victory for the Greeks. Apart from being omnipresent in books, art, television, movies and songs, the Ancient Greek flying horse Pegasus has found itself as the logo/name of thousands of corporations including Mobil, FBR Capital Markets, Pegasus Express Ltd, the UB group, Pegaso, Reader's Digest, Pegasus Airlines, Air France, TriStar Pictures and even Dallas, Texas. Most of us are loyal customers of Amazon.com. Where do you think the name comes from? When we think of the moon landing, we think of Apollo 11. Who do you think that series of spacecrafts was named after? Just do a Google search of Greek influences in industry and you'll turn up an astonishing number of hits. It completely blows my mind.

Don't even get me started on Film and Television. It seems that every second film produced by Hollywood these days is directly influenced by ancient mythology and the rest are indirectly influenced by it. Greek influence in modern music is as surprising as it is extensive. The Greek Epics are ubiquitous in classical music and references to Greek myth in pop music is more common than you'd think. However, arguably the field where classical civilizations have had the greatest impact would have to be literature. A ridiculously high percentage of fiction books produced today draw from the Ancient Greeks. Medieval works of literature, of course, is almost wholly based on Greek or Roman influences. Romantic poetry is famous for being based on Greek mythology. The Classical period of literature is named after the overt classical influences apparent in the literary output of the era. I end with possibly my favorite example: the Bible. The best-selling book of all time tries exceedingly hard not to draw from Greek society but ends up drawing more from it than almost any other book. Just pick up any Dan Brown novel for proof...

Classics Audiobooks?

A few days ago  I was just surfing the net (procrastinating) when I came across a link for a set of audiobooks for the Greek and Roman epics. My curiosity prevailed and I ended up buying the Iliad, Odyssey and the Aeneid. I was skeptical. I mean, these are some of the best works of literature ever written and the idea of audiobooks in general doesn't really excite me. For me, the voices in my head that become the various characters in a book are the best part of reading a book and having a voice read a book out to me seems constraining and counter-intuitive and I generally don't enjoy it. Also, the audiobook for the Iliad alone is over 22 hours and I don't know about you, but I think that's a LONG time spent listening to just one voice, no matter how good that voice is. Still, I sat down and listened to book one of the Iliad and I must say, I was a bit won over. I have, I fear, gone over to the dark side. The reader was very skilled and the overall experience was enhanced by sound effects and music enhancing and understating the right bits. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

What do you think? By the way, these audiobooks are all available on Amazon or at audible.com.

Euripides' Medea: The play and the character: Part 2

Note: This is a continuation of my last post on this blog called 'Euripides' Medea: The play and the character: Part 1'.

The play Medea is a very useful play for classicists as a tool for understanding how Greeks (especially Athenians) viewed foreigners. The protagonist, Medea, is, of course, a foreigner. She's from Colchis which is in modern day Turkey. Jason brought her over from Colchis to Greece during his quest for the Golden Fleece. Perhaps there'll be a post on that adventure on this site sometime in the future. At the time the play was performed, Athens was involved in a long war in which an increasing number of Athenian soldiers were bringing back foreign brides and so sullying the purity of the Athenian citizenship. To maintain the 'Athenianness' of the people of the polis, strict laws of citizenship were put in place. So, the zeitgeist that Euripides was writing for demanded problems in the relationship between Jason and Medea and he was delighted to oblige.

Where we left off last time, Jason and Medea were on Corinth, married and with two sons. Jason was an up and coming figure in the political circles of Corinth and, in order to gain more power, he agrees to marry Glauce, the daughter of Creon, the king of Corinth. Technically, in doing so he breaks his sacred marriage vows with Medea and so should draw the wrath of the gods. However, since Medea is a foreigner, Euripides seems to imply that it's ok for Jason to divorce her without any divine repercussions  He does still have to face human repercussions though, as we shall soon see. Medea, of course, is not thrilled by the turn of events and, in a fit of anger, threatens Glauce if she proceeds with her marriage to Jason. In order to protect his daughter, Creon decrees that Medea and her sons with Jason are exiled from Corinth. It is at this point that the play opens, with the nurse of Medea summarizing these events for the audience.

Medea is distraught at Jason's betrayal. She cannot stand idly by and be toyed with. She is one of the most powerful characters in ancient Myth and the audience at the time must have known that. Euripides has built a tantalizing foundation for his play. We have the hero who betrays the powerful foreign sorceress in favour of the beautiful, young princess. Now he makes the hero come to the sorceress and defend his actions. Euripides' Jason truly seems to believe that he has not betrayed Medea but done the right thing by her. He says that he had courted Glauce in order to gain power so that he could protect Medea and their children and provide safe, happy lives for them all. He blames their current plight on Medea. Why did she have to go and threaten the royal family he asks. Why couldn't she just keep her temper in check and just keep silent? Well, since her mindless actions have brought ruin upon her, he says, he is prepared to extend his help for her and the children during their exile. He offers to provide wealth and organize sanctuary for Medea and his sons. Medea, of course, refuses.

What follows is one of my favorite give and takes in Greek Tragedy. We learn an incredible amount of the myth of the Golden Fleece hunt from the following speeches of Medea and Jason. We also learn a great deal about the 'proper' role of women in ancient Greece and the dichotomy of gender roles in society. Succinctly put, Medea alleges that Jason would not have survived his adventures without her help. She lists all the things she has done for him and indeed, it is a long list. She accuses his of forgetting what he owes her and deserting her out of passion for a younger woman. Jason, in response, states that all Medea had done for him were not done by her own free will but the will of the gods. He was not indebted to Medea for his survival and success but to the Olympians who watched over him. He reminds Medea of the favours he has done for her in return. He reminds her of the fame, wealth and power he has given her. He then refutes her accusation that he was in love with Glauce and had left Medea out of blind passion. Blind passion, he says, are for women. Men are practical beings. This gives us a glimpse into the minds of the ancient Greeks when it came to defining gender roles. Jason goes on to explain how his marriage to Glauce would have benefited Medea and her sons if only she had held her tongue. He reiterates his offer of help. Medea, stung by his words and driven by her pride, refuses his offer and bids him to leave her and return to his young new bride.

Medea wants revenge. She burns with her desire for revenge. She is a very dangerous woman and she seeks to destroy the lives of Jason and the Corinthian royalty. She comes up with a plan that in my eyes has to have been one of the evillest ever plotted.

First, Medea secures her own future. She meets with Aegeus, king of Athens (and father of Theseus) and organizes sanctuary for herself in Athens. Then, she pretends to have made peace with the decisions of Jason and Creon. She sends her children with gifts as an offering of peace to Glauce and Creon. Her sons present Glauce with a beautiful robe and an even more dazzling diadem. Here begins Medea's systematic destruction of Jason's life. When Glauce puts on her new robe and diadem, her skin starts burning as if by acid and her hair catches on fire. Her eyes pop out and she screams in agony! The gifts were laced with a potent poison (the same one used to 'kill' Heracles). In an attempt to help his daughter, Creon pulls her to him and brings himself under the influence of the poison as well. The two perish in utter agony. Step one of Medea's revenge is complete: She has destroyed Jason's new life in Corinth and, in the process, destroyed the Corinthian royalty that had dared to exile her.

The next part of the play is a sad one and shows the lengths to which Medea (who represents the 'barbaric' outsider) would go to avenge a wring done to her. She kills her own children. There is a gut-wrenching scene in the play where she steels herself for the task while to chorus of Corinthian women beg her not to go through with it.But she does, and in doing so, she deprived Jason of his sons and the future of his lineage. His new wife is dead and his children with his ex-wife are also gone. He is left with the ignominy of knowing that his line ends with him. In ancient Greece, this was ignominy indeed. Ensuring the longevity of one's lineage was a duty demanded by the gods in ancient Greek society. By failing at that task, Jason has made himself a pariah and all his past success as a hero dims in comparison with his failure at his basic human duty. To complete her revenge, Medea takes the bodies of her sons with her when she escaped (on a dragon-drawn carriage provided by Helios! Wicked!) and went to Athens. In doing so, she deprives Jason of the chance to give his sons a proper burial, horrifying for any ancient Greek father.

Medea's revenge was complete. She goes on to feature prominently in the myths of Athens and Theseus but that is a tale for future posts to tell.

Euripides' Medea is a truly fascinating play with one of the most complex (and my favourite) tragic character.

Euripides' Medea: The play and the character: Part 1

33 tragedies survive from ancient Greece. 7 of these are the work of Aeschylus, 7 Sophocles and 19 Euripides. Of the 19 Euripides tragedies that have survived completely (well, almost), my favorite is 'Medea'.

Perhaps I like this play the best of all Euripides' work because I like the character of Medea the best of all the characters that Euripides employs. I liked her character a whole lot in classical myth before I even read the play. She is, in my opinion, one of the most dynamic, complex and multifaceted characters in classical myth and that's saying a lot. Unpredictable as the ocean, fickle as the winds, with the power of the sun and the beauty of the earth: the elements that combine to make Medea do so generously.

Euripides

In myth, Medea is the granddaughter of Helios, the god of the sun. She was a witch, which in ancient Greece meant that she had supernatural powers that allowed her to control things that humans generally could not. On a list of the most powerful/dangerous witches of classical myth, Medea would be second only to Circe, who I might discuss in a later post (she is almost as fascinating as Medea). Key to the ancient Greeks was the fact that she was what they called a barbarian, i.e. a non-Greek. She was from the far shores of the Εϋξεινος πóντος (the friendly sea) which was what the Greeks called the Black Sea. Her story is tied the that of Jason (Jason of Jason and the Argonauts) and that is far too long a story to go into now. I'll talk about it in my next post. Long story short, Jason and Medea fall in love and Jason brings Medea back to Greece with him.

By the time the play 'Medea' begins, Jason and Medea have two sons. However, all is not right with their lives (and that's why it's a tragedy).

The play is set in Corinth, a city in ancient Greece. At the opening of the play, Jason has left Medea for Glauce, the daughter of Creon, the king of Corinth. Medea, of course, is distraught and furious. In her fury, she has threatened Glauce and, fearing for the safety of his daughter, Creon has banished Medea and her children from Corinth. Jason defends his actions by insisting that marrying Glauce was the right thing for him and for their family. He says that his marrying the daughter of the king of the land would have served to secure their future if only Medea had acted sensibly. Now, because of her rash actions, he says, she is banished along with her children. He offers to help her seek shelter in another part of Greece but Medea is in no mood to accept any help from him. She yells at him for abandoning her and their children and insists that his decision was made with only self gain in mind. Frustrated, Jason leaves her. Medea vows to have her revenge...and she does. What does she do? Find out in part 2! (Oh, that rhymes!)

Heroes

Heroes. What exactly are they? More to the point, what were they to the ancient Greeks? If I was an ancient Greek, what image would my mind conjure when I heard the word 'hero'?

Unfortunately we do not have an ancient Greek brain to pick and so we have to look to archaic written sources. In Hesiod's Works and Days we find a reference to what the heroes were to the ancients. Hesiod tells us that men were created as five successive races (to date) and the current crop of men were of the fifth or iron race. The four preceding races (or ages) were the golden race, the silver race, the bronze race and the race of heroes. So by Hesiodic definition, heroes were the race of men that preceded the current Iron race of men.

Today classicists define a hero as any larger than life figure who has, or at one point had, an active localized cult. Basically, in ancient Greece, each hero had his/her own localized cult and all who pass through the land and past the cult would have to pay homage to the figure of the hero. So all the great heroes that we talk about today, like Perseus, Atlanta, Theseus, Achilles, Diomedes and the like, would have had their own localized cults in ancient Greece and this is what made them heroes.

An interesting case of a hero would be that of Heracles. Heracles was undoubtedly a hero of great significance. He traveled all over the ancient Greek world doing heroic things and killing all sorts of things. The problem arose when because of this travelling, and his stature, cults in his name sprung up all over Greece and beyond. He could no longer be strictly defined as a hero because his cult wasn't localized . So the Greeks elevated him to the rank of a god to explain his large following and this is why Heracles often exists in the dual roles of hero and deity in ancient Greek sources.

Goat songs and Revelry songs

The most unfortunate fact that students of Classics have to face is that there are no ancient Greek bards wandering around singing about the gods anymore. What we know about Greek myth, culture and society is not first hand knowledge. Part of it is gleaned from the songs sung and tales told by small populations in parts of Europe that still follow the oral tradition. They heard what they sing today from their parents and their parents heard it from theirs before them and so on. The stories that one can hear from them, if one is privileged enough to be invited to such a gathering, can be traced back to the time of the ancient Greece aoidoi. However, the problem with the information learned by the oral tradition is that we really don't know how trustworthy it is and so Classicists always double check their findings. The overwhelming majority of what we know about ancient Greek culture and myth we know from reading ancient texts and, far more often, fragments of ancient texts that have somehow survived through the ages.

Ancient Greek sources (texts) are many and varied. The type that we will be dealing with today is Drama. The ancient Greeks pioneered the Dramatic arts and the plays that survive today are treasure troves of information.

The popular portrayal of Comedy and Tragedy
Image credits: www.fanpop.com

The two types of drama in ancient Greece were Tragedy (literally goat-song) and Comedy (fun-song or revelry-song). These two genres can only very loosely be grouped together since they represent forms of art that are complete polar opposites of one another in terms of form, content and intent. Tragedy is the more ancient and revered form; Comedy was born much later and served a very different purpose. Tragedy was born simply to honour the gods. All tragedy and tragic poetry involved the gods and many of them involved heroes. Through tragedy, the Greeks acknowledged the existence and potency of a power that they could perceive but not comprehend. Almost all the examples of ancient Greek tragedy that have survived portray people as helpless in front of mighty, omnipotent deities that always have their way in the end.

The role of comedy was very different. Comedy basically existed to insult. It's purpose was to point out flaws and shortcomings in people, groups or systems so that they could be fixed. In this role, it must be admitted that Comedy was very successful indeed. In ancient Athens, especially, Comedy was a very powerful medium of communication and several heads rolled because of what Comic poets wrote.

Tragedy and Comedy share one characteristic though: they were aimed at an audience. Due to this simple inherent quality, they are invaluable for Classicists trying to piece together the image of the society and culture of the times. Because drama was aimed at an audience or, otherwise put, designed for an audience, it is fraught with information about the era and allusions to popular beliefs. Through ancient Greek drama, one can perceive the zeitgeist of ancient Greece.

Therein lies the importance of goat songs and revelry songs.

The great Heroes before the Trojan War

The Trojan War produced the many of the greatest heroes that classical mythology boasts of. The lives and exploits of these heroes have been well documented and romanticized by many a poet and bard over the years and now with the release of movies such as Troy^TM and the like there are few people across the globe who do not know the names of Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, Paris, Ajax, Agamemnon and so on and so forth. However there was another crop of heroes, just as famous, of an ilk arguably far superior to that of the illustrious heroes mentioned above. These heroes existed before the Trojan War had ever begun. There are several great heroes before the Trojan War but undoubtedly the four greatest are, in chronological order, Perseus, Heracles, Atlanta and Theseus. The latter three were of the same generation: the one immediately preceding the Trojan War. Atlanta and Heracles partook in the Quest for the Golden Fleece together and Heracles and Theseus were compatriots in several adventures and shared the bond of blood…but more on this later.

Perseus was several generations before the other three. In fact, he was the grandfather to Heracles. The adventures of Perseus are the subject of numerous books and discussions but I can give a condensed form here…

The two great Gods of the Earth...Part 2

Demeter, to recapitulate, was the Goddess of the corn. She was a daughter of Cronus and Rhea and sister to Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera and Hestia. This made her an Olympian by birth but she was not held to be an Olympian by the Ancient Greeks. She was a Goddess much more often found on earth than in Olympus. Demeter was a peoples’ deity. She helped the women as they sowed the seeds. She held the hands of the farmers as they harvested the corn. She was the Goddess who allowed the Greeks to live, to sustain. She did not make any extravagant demands. She asked for no great sacrifice. The simple thrashing floor was held to be her temple, the mere act of breaking corn-bread an offering to her. She was thus a more personable and real Goddess than the Olympians. The Greeks felt her presence in everyday life; they were directly affected by her power.

Another fact about Demeter that drew the Greeks closer to her was that she was a Goddess who knew real suffering. She had experienced doom and despair and fear and other human emotions that Gods and Goddesses were usually immune to. Demeter and Dionysus, the two Gods of the Earth, were held to be suffering Gods and thus in a class by themselves among the divinities.

The source of Demeter’s great suffering was her daughter, Persephone (Proserpine in Latin).   Persephone, being the daughter of the Goddess of corn and agriculture, was the Goddess of flowers. She and her handmaidens often went out in search of new and lovely flowers, roaming the Greek countryside in search of the wonderful blooms. When she was on one of these outings, she was sighted by Hades, the Lord of the underworld. Hades fell in love with her and sought to have her as his own. To this end he went to his brother, Zeus, and asked him for help in making Persephone his bride. Zeus created a beautiful flower, far beautiful than any other flower in existence, and made it bloom some distance away from Persephone and her handmaidens. The Goddess noticed it and was entranced by the lovely flower. She could not help but approach it and as soon as she was separated from her handmaidens Hades caused a chasm in the earth and flew up in his chariot. He grabbed Persephone and before her handmaidens could do anything but scream in horror he had descended below ground leaving no trace of his presence at the site.

Upon hearing of her daughters disappearance Demeter was devastated. She searched the earth and heavens for Persephone but could not find her anywhere. She sunk into a deep depression and wandered from place to place, not eating or drinking, just looking desperately for her daughter. The effect of her gloom was devastating upon the earth. The ground bore no fruits or flowers and became hard and parched and lifeless. Crops died and all humanity suffered terribly from starvation and thirst. Zeus sent emissary after emissary to talk to Demeter but she could not be appeased. She pined for her daughter and all creation suffered along with her. As her state worsened so did the condition of the earth and men and Gods alike. The warm and moist fields were replaced with dry, unyielding deserts. Trees began dying, ponds and lakes evaporated and breezes stopped blowing. All this time Demeter sat and brooded over Persephone’s disappearance.

Finally Zeus realized that there was only one solution to this terrible problem and he commanded Hades to release Persephone. Hades had no choice. He had to follow his brother’s order but he did so with an ill will and concocted a plan which would mean that he did not permanently lose his bride. He convinced Persephone, who longed for her mother as her mother longed for her, to consume a pomegranate seed before she ascended to Earth. He knew that this would ensure that Persephone would have to return to him for a large amount of time every year. So Persephone returned to Earth and was reunited with her mother and Demeter rejoiced at getting her daughter back though she despaired when she heard of the pomegranate seed. Still, Demeter got her daughter back and the earth became fertile again and the ground yielded bumper crops for several seasons to come.

However Demeter’s joy was not complete. Persephone was compelled to return to the underworld as Queen for four months every year. So Demeter suffered every year as she saw her daughter basically die every year. The fun-loving Goddess of flowers too was never the same again. She was the flower Goddess but she was also the Queen of the underworld for a third of the year every year. She was now a terrible Goddess; a Goddess of life among the dead; the Goddess who died every year. And every year when she died Demeter pined for her and the earth grew cold and unyielding until she came back four months later and brought spring and joy and happiness with her. That is how the Greeks explained the phenomenon of winter!

The Olympians...Part 5

Zeus had a single child with Maia. This child was Hermes, God of thieves, tricksters and travelers. He is a wily Goddess, always up to some trick or the other. He was the messenger of Zeus along with Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow. His duties also included leading the souls of the dead to the underworld where they were to remain for all eternity. Hermes is the God most familiar to us. He appears oftener than any other divinity in Mythology. He is described and a "lovely youth at that time in his life when youth is at its loveliest." Various statues and sculptures throughout history have ensured that we all know what Hermes looks like. He is always pictured with a winged hat, winged sandals and his staff called the Caduceus.

Last but not least is Aphrodite, the laughter loving Goddess of beauty and physical love. She is sometimes said to be a child of Zeus but she is more commonly said to have risen out the foam created when the bits and pieces of Ouranos' body fell into the sea. Certainly her name seems to concur with this version: Aphros means foam in ancient Greek. From the spot where she was formed Aphrodite was said to have floated to the island of Cyprus where the seasons nursed her and took care of her. She is often portrayed with Eros (Latin Cupid), God of love, who is sometimes her son and sometimes her companion.

So these are the Twelve Great Olympians: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Aphrodite and Hermes.

The Olympians...Part 4

Zeus had two children with a Goddess called Leto. They were twins: Apollo and Artemis. Apollo was the God of many things. He was the God of music, who entertained all of Olympus with his Lyre. He was the God of medicine and the patron of all healers. He was the God of Archery who never missed his target. He was the God of truth and a lie never crossed his lips. He was the God of poetry and would spout the most beautiful verses at random times. He was the God of oracles and his priestess at the temple at Delphi would answer honestly every question put forth to her. In later hymns he is confused with Helios, the God of the Sun though the two should never be held to be the same. His sister Artemis was another complex being. She was the Goddess of the hunt, a strange office for a woman. Like all great huntsmen she protected the young and was thus held to be the Goddess of youth and innocence. She was the Goddess of the wild and nature and animals were under her special care. She, along with Hestia and Athena, was a virgin Goddess and her priestesses were all maidens, protected from the corrupting nature of the free world. If her brother was confused with the sun God, she was mistaken for Selene, the Goddess of the moon. Tales of the underworld show her in a very different light. In the darkness she was Hecate, Goddess of witchcraft and magic and the evil crossroads. So we see Artemis as a three faced Goddess: innocent Goddess of the wild and the young on earth; delicate Goddess of the dark side of the moon in the sky and dark Goddess of magic and evil trickery in the Underworld. Artemis, more than any other Olympian, shows us the danger of mixing and matching myths and divinities in Mythology.